I Didn't Know That You Cared

Casa Bookish was hit by runny noses and sore throats this week. The affliction resulted in two things: a lot of books being read and some impromptu dress-making. The dress in question is still a work in progress. It's based upon Simplicity 2925, view A but I cannot be trusted to do anything by the book - not even sewing. I did away with some ruffles, altered the yoke/neckline and I'm adding buttons where there are no buttons. Rebel.

The fabric is a very light polycotton from Mandors. I fell in love with the subtle geometric print and the black/dark green/cream colours. It won't keep me warm, but it will be a great layering piece (once I finish it - the basic construction is done, but the small bits are not).

I have become aware that I'm increasingly dressing like an art teacher. A very Danish art teacher with restrained colour schemes and attention to details - but an art teacher nonetheless. Making more of my own clothes will not - will not - curb that tendency.

Meanwhile, as some of you may know, The Huffington Post published a blog post about knitting and baking betraying the feminist movement. The post itself read like someone had taken a Feminism 101 class and just scraping home a pass (because the teacher was in a good mood having devoured a home-baked cup cake). The responses to the post were far more interesting. This one is one of my favourites so far: succinct, humorous, and blunt. Any recommendations for more smart, funny, self-aware responses?

On the agenda: getting better, saving Other Half from the plague, choosing non-functioning buttons for the dress, cooking dinner (soup?) and reading my book. It's a hard life.

Monday Making

As a freelancer, I occasionally have to take time to assess where I am and where I am going. I think of these assessments as incredibly fruitful and certainly a lot more thought-provoking than when I used to get assessments in my pre-freelance working days! As a result of this past week's re-assessment, Fourth Edition is now part of my on-going thought process, so you will begin to see new content creeping into the corners over the next few weeks. Don't worry - I will still be waffling on about knitting, sewing, making, and books on my blog. The new content will be straightforward things such as a list of the craft classes and courses I'm teaching etc. I might even add a diary of said courses some time this decade! Steady on! Mondays tend to be my weekly day of relaxation - funnily enough I am often at my most productive on Mondays too. It is almost like I relax by making things!

I just cut out the pieces for my Crepe dress. I'm using Nigerian wax-print cotton. It is going to be quite .. loud, I think, but also rather funky. There are some very cool Crepe dresses in the Flickr photo pool. I hope to make a second, dressier version of this dress for a summer wedding next year, so I am essentially treating this version as a fancy toile/muslin version.

Note to self: next time make sure the fabric is wide enough for the skirt pieces. The cotton is relatively narrow and I had to be rather clever about how to cut out the pieces along the grain line.

My autumn knitting project, Norn, is knitting up quite quickly. I have been taking a couple of days off from knitting due to my on-going wrist problems, but up until Friday I had managed to get a couple of rows done here and there.

I am absolutely loving this: the yarn is soft and fascinatingly heathered; the pattern is easy and intuitive; the result is just beautiful. All projects should be like this. I've used 3 balls of the main colour so far and I'm halfway up the body. I should be fine with the amount of yarn I have, then. Phew. Incidentally, I'm knitting this using my usual two-hand colour knitting method. I get stared at a lot (yes, I'm back knitting in public).

Finally, I cannot show you pictures of a design-in-progress but here is a photo which may (or may not) provide you with a clue.

I am in two minds about using myself as a model in my patterns. At my last knitting group session I was sitting next to my friend KOS who is currently working on Karise. It was rather unnerving to have my own face stare back at me throughout the knitting group.

So, if you are an aspiring model/actor/musician living in Glasgow and you need something to pad out the old portfolio or CV, I'm your lady. No money involved, just the chance to impress the knitting community. Or maybe I'll just need to come to terms with the entire staring-at-myself deal.

Swatching for the Future

Do you swatch? To tell you the truth, I rarely swatch except when I suspect that either my tension will be off-kilter or when I'm unsure about colour combinations. It is a terrible thing to admit to (not) doing and it is definitely a case of do-as-I-tell-you, not do-as-I-do. I'd be a nightmare parent. But I am swatching now, except I am swatching with Rowan Fine Tweed (4ply) rather than Rowan Tweed (DK). I wanted to make sure that my chosen colour combination for Finna will work - and since my local Rowan stockist did not have the full range of the DK weight colours (any day now, though, any day), I took the opportunity to sample the fine gauge instead. The combination is a thing of beauty and I am marvellously excited about getting started.

I'm tentatively starting to think about my autumn wardrobe. Apart from Finna (and another jumper or cardigan I'm yet to decide upon), I want to make a couple of go-to skirts. I have some beautiful green corduroy stashed away which is crying out to be a 1970s-style A-line skirt with pockets (must.have.pockets) but I cannot find the right pattern. Then there is the green-cream-orange apple-print cotton which is just on the right side of 1970s retro kitsch, but which could be ruined by pairing up with the wrong pattern. I've looked at Burda and Simplicity, but pattern suggestions are very welcome.

Even more excitement: the Crocheted Jewellery group on Ravelry is hosting a CAL (a crochet-along) of my Kaldred bracelet all August long! I love seeing what people do with my patterns and I'm having so much fun looking through people's projects.

So jumpers and skirts and a few patterns to write-up .. phew, it is going to be a very busy autumn in Casa Bookish craft-wise. How is your craft basket looking?

Shimmy On

What a lovely, productive weekend. The UK enjoyed two days of glorious sunshine, blue skies and summer-like temperatures. Ahhh... Of course, being as clueless as ever, I was wearing boots and black tights underneath my dress whilst everyone else was showing off their nicest summer outfits. In the evening I wore my Millbrook cardigan for the first time since last summer. I still love it so very, very much. Note to self: I need to solve my summer clothes situation, I need to knit more summery cardigans and I need more Rennie yarn - particularly as the company has sadly gone into administration. (This is not the time for a good rant about how UK knitters need to support the UK wool industry instead of importing US yarns in the name of supporting small, local producers. But, mark my words, there will be a rant at some point.)

Ah, but first a small aside about a beautiful Sunday.

We started off with our usual trip to Auntie M's Cake Lounge, then ran into a rather rowdy Alasdair Gray at The Hillhead Bookclub (which has nothing to do with books, incidentally, but has tonnes of atmosphere), got massively tempted by Miss Katie Cupcake's wares at HB's Granny Would Be Proud craft fair (still the best curated craft fair in Glasgow), caught up with our good friends at The Life Craft whilst taking in a new Colorimetry trunk show, happened upon some real vintage bargains in Ruthven Lane (the shop owner, Stephen, was delighted: "I was told nobody would ever buy that but here you are an hour later.."), and finally ended up alongside the River Kelvin where we found some wild garlic that was put to good use in our dinner.. Ahhh.

But the lack of summer clothes is an issue. Today I'm going to cut several sewing projects. Huzzah!

I could not resist the 1950s-esque print of this cotton/poly. The colours are not very summery, but they are good, versatile ones. I'm making the Simplicity/Lisette Passport dress, although with some trepidation as I usually need to do an FBA (full bust adjustment) on tops and I haven't a clue how to do one on this pattern. We shall see.

I am also going to cut the Crepe dress in some African cotton I scored on eBay and while I'm at it, I might as well cut a skirt in Amy Butler's Daisy Chain Blush (top fabric - not my usual colours but it was a remnant) which'll be perfect for work.

Also in the works: oh gosh, it is my ill-fated Kim Hargreaves cardigan finally blocking! I finished knitting this cardigan back in January, realised that I should have done an FBA on it (somehow), and left it lying in a bag behind the sofa. I'm blocking the bejeebus out of it and I hope the alpaca will also stretch beyond belief. If it doesn't work, I'll just wear the cardigan unbuttoned. It'd look nice over the Passport dress, wouldn't it?

And my Kaffe Goes Bollywood wrap is almost done. It has been a great relaxing knit - and one of those where you thought "oh, just one more row".

I'm still not convinced I chose the right colours - it is not quite as eye-searingly bright as I had hoped - but it is one of those projects where you don't have to be a colour genius like Kaffe Fassett to figure out a colourway. The colours will magically work together no matter which ones you choose.

Now, let me get the ironing board out, find my scissors and start getting down to work..

FOs: Cowl & Quilt

What a great spring weekend. Perfect for finishing projects and take photos of said Finished Objects in the park.

First up, my new favourite piece of knitwear. A super-simple cowl knitted in the round out of three different silky yarns. It feel luxurious, it is easy to wear and I love the play of textures. It is not a shouty piece of knitwear - it does not go look at me, I'm handknit! - but it is really versatile. It'll live 'round my neck until proper summer hits Scotland.

I have rav'd the cowl here and I recommend trying to pair up very different yarns and textures. My next big knitting project is all about textures too but more on that later.

Now my next project and one which gave me that amazing did I really make that? feel which I rarely get with knitting these days (sad but true).

My first quilt, y'all.

The second weekend workshop took place yesterday and I managed to finish piecing the top, sandwich the layers, quilt the whole thing and do the binding. No wonder I'm exhausted today!

An error on a sewing machine supplier's part meant that instead of freemotion quilting we had to choose quilt patterns that we could finish with straight-stitching. That sudden constraint worked wonders for the class' creativity, I think, and people became very engaged in thinking up quilting designs rather than worrying about getting their patchwork perfect. I chose to do an asymmetrical starburst on top of my (mostly) symmetrical design. It may be difficult to tell by the photo but the starburst is oddly effective. The interplay between the patchwork with its rigid lines (and made from geometric prints) and the asymmetric quilt lines lets your eye travel - and also looks far better than any freemotion attempt on my part would have done.

My good friend Kirsten Marie wondered if I enjoyed quilting and if so what I enjoyed about it.

Honestly, I am not sure if quilting is for me. I am not a very precise crafter - I work best on the basis of intuition and fudging things - and I think you need to be anal rentative into measuring things twice and following rules to really enjoy quilting.

Having said that, I am really bowled over by my first quilt of mine and I really liked seeing it come together. I enjoyed having an idea in my head regarding colour and seeing how that idea panned out.

And I liked how everybody's quilts in my class looked so different because of fabric choice and how personal all the quilts felt as though they really did reflect the personalities of the people making them.

(I think my quilt looks modern, colourful and Scandinavian - I think that runs pretty true to my taste!)

Will I be doing more quilting? Probably, yes. I do think the cost of materials is fairly prohibitive and I stress out during certain parts of the process, but I will probably return to this craft occasionally. I like snuggling up in blankets, after all, and there is something to be said about making your own quilted blanket..

Lessons Learned

I have learned several lessons today. 1) I was right to buy more fabric for my first quilt. Remember I felt uneasy about the matchy-ness of my fabrics? I decided to mix up my orange fabrics with some aqua. I rather like the result.

2) I get really, really stressed out about measuring and cutting my pieces. At one point my hands were so shaking so much that I was ordered out of the classroom to get some fresh air. Well, you'd be stressed too if your first go with a rotary cutter resulted in you making a big and very uncalled-for cut into your expensive binding material.

3) I find the sewing part very relaxing and intuitive compared to the cutting. Nothing can go wrong now. Except if you sew wrong bits together but that is what a seam-ripper is for.

4) Seeing how your fabrics look together makes up for a lot of stress.

5) No matter how careful I am when measuring & cutting my pieces, I will need to dip into my scraps for extra squares because I struggle with imperial measurements.

6) And when I get home, I will take a ubiquitous photo of my semi-finished craft project in The Usual Spot.

I have homework for next week: I need to finish sewing all my squares and ironing them because next time we'll be putting the quilt together! I'm slightly terrified of the binding and very apprehensive about the actual quilting, but I'll be fine. My teacher, Bronwen, was a calming, encouraging influence throughout the class and even managed to make me feel accomplished despite my numerous shortcomings.

Also: I loved seeing how the other quilts were shaping up and how much of a difference fabric choice makes.

In knitting, a jumper looks more-or-less the same whether you do it in green, blue or orange. Katherine had chosen to use all bold patterns in teals, blues, and greens. Dr J had gone for one specific print and had picked co-ordinating fabrics based upon that print. Another woman were making the quilt with her god-daughter in mind: pretty, pale pastel colours and tiny prints. We were all using the same layout but the feel of the patchwork blocks were so very, very different. So cool.

Meanwhile I have started a new knitting project - a really easy, mindless little thing that's also a great stash-buster (as long as you don't go out to buy two balls of yarn to match stash yarn like I did..). More on that anon.

Finally, a few random links: + Old love never really dies ..  but the dog is a bonus. Also, Scots don't really look like this. Trust me. + I'm interested in neurology for a number of reasons and this little article answers something that has been nagging me since childhood: why do I see certain shapes if I rub my eyes? + The blog name really bugs me, but the post touches upon things that played a small, but very significant part in me leaving Denmark. + Sound advice for any blogger (not just food blogging).